The Star didn’t have the picture, after all. After the Journal was out, next afternoon, Joan started over to meet Miss Betty, who was going to treat her at the tea room for helping her yesterday morning. The Journal staff often went there between meals, and it somehow gave Joan a deliciously grown-up feeling. Mother, scandalized at the idea, had said, “There’s toast left from breakfast and plenty of fresh fruit, if you’re really hungry.” Joan had pointed out, “It isn’t that, Mother. I just want to eat out.”
Besides, she wanted to confide to Miss Betty all about yesterday and to ask her advice about the best method of returning the picture.
When she entered the front office she found Chub, rather pale beneath his freckles, laughing away with Gertie, the ad girl.
“Oh, gee, Jo, you’re just about two minutes too late,” he grinned. “You missed it.”
“What?”
“The grand finale to the King act,” he went on. “Mamma King and Daughter King—I suppose I should call them the Queen and the Princess—just left here, with....”
“With the Betrothed Knight,” added Gertie.
“The Kings?” Joan’s mind groped. “Was she provoked about the picture?”
“Well, she was put out,” admitted Chub. “I thought Tim and me’d both lose our jobs, immediately, if not sooner. But she never got to see Nix, and everything’s O.K. now. You see, it just happened that the Journal came out with the wrong picture. That was a picture of Jacqueline Joyce that we—we came across. Mamma King was fit to be tied. But I saved the day. I told ’em how we wanted to help the cub reporter, and how when an editor says get it, he doesn’t mean you to come back empty-handed.”
“The wrong picture!” Joan felt a little sick.